This invention relates to safes, and in particular to an improved means for lockably securing closure members for safes.
It is known, for example from UK Pat. No. 1299858 to provide safe closure members in which bolts are mounted for sliding movement so as to engage with abutments in an opening of the safe body, and to provide a locking device which will prevent the bolts from being withdrawn. It is a disadvantage of such known arrangements that the bolts engage the safe body at discrete locations, whereby destruction of the bolts, or of the parts of the safe body which these bolts engage, will enable the closure member to be removed. This is particularly the case when, in accordance with a usual practice, the bolts engage under a relatively thin flange or rim of the safe opening.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a safe in which locking is not principally effected by engagement of one or more bolts with the safe body and in which unauthorised removal of the closure member is resisted by the safe body as a whole, rather than by a flange or rim on the body.
A safe according to the invention comprises a chamber having an access opening and a closure which is movable into and out of said opening, first and second peripheral grooves around said opening and said closure respectively, means on said opening and said closure for locating said closure within said opening so that said first and second grooves are substantially aligned, an element which is captive in one of said grooves and which surrounds said closure when the latter is located in said opening, a member slidable in said closure to a locking position in which said member engages said element to displace the latter to a position in which said element engages both said first and said second grooves, and latching means for engagement with said slidable member to maintain the latter in its locking position.